Care for a Beating, Professor?
The professors of Jerion Academy were some of the most renowned powerhouses in the Empire. Jerion Academy was an institution dedicated to nurturing heroes to stand against the world's greatest enemy, the Demon Palace. Naturally, its faculty could not be chosen lightly. Thus, every single professor working at Jerion Academy possessed outstanding strength. Since the majority of them were heroes who had once fought valiantly in the Demon Palace, their reputations were incredibly high.
But stagnant water is bound to rot. Among those professors once hailed as heroes, there were those who had decayed. Human greed knows no bounds. Even after securing both wealth and honor as a professor at Jerion Academy, there was one who still hungered for more.
During his school days, he had lived with the label of a perpetual runner-up, making him exceptionally obsessed with first place. This was the third-year magic professor, Varkio Labrizan. He was a tragic genius who had been pushed aside by the current Blue Magic Tower Master, robbed of the title of the genius of the century.
He was also a figure with an incredibly poor reputation among the students. He routinely looked down on low-achieving students and did not hesitate to mock them. Consequently, his reputation among the student body was the absolute worst.
Now aging, Professor Varkio felt his body growing heavier here and there. Yet, he still vividly remembered the past—the humiliating memory of having even the position of Tower Master snatched away by a genius he could never hope to reach. All this time, he had dreamed of building his own magic tower. He believed that was the only way to reclaim the pride that had been crushed during his school days.
However, in the Empire, the Blue Magic Tower and the Yellow Magic Tower had already reached the pinnacle of magic. The current situation did not allow for another magic tower to be established. Therefore, he joined hands with a foreign kingdom. In exchange for them building a magic tower for Varkio, he leaked imperial secrets and embezzled funds from Jerion Academy.
With nothing left to do but defect to that kingdom in the near future, an irreversible disaster struck. A trivial group of students calling themselves the Student Council Boycott had exposed all of his corruption and misdeeds on the day of the Founding Festival.
Varkio completely lost his mind. It would have been one thing if he had already defected, but if this became known under the current circumstances, he would almost certainly face execution.
'Not yet. It's not over yet.'
The news had only spread within Jerion Academy so far. If he burned all the bastards who spread the word to buy some time and defected immediately, he could still escape.
'Most of all...'
The top-secret documents he had prepared for his final transaction with the kingdom were in his private office. Outsiders could not easily enter Jerion Academy, making his private office the perfect place to hide such highly classified materials. He had never imagined that trouble would brew from the inside.
He hurriedly flung open the door to his office. On his way here, he had blasted away every member of the Student Council Boycott he laid eyes on to vent his anger. It was a fitting punishment for those foolish students. Now, he had to quickly gather the documents and burn the rest of them to ashes. Just as he was about to grab the files with that thought in mind—
Click—clack.
The door to his private office suddenly shut behind him. Inside the dark room, moonlight filtering through the window illuminated the space. As Varkio slowly turned his head, he saw a man with a familiar face standing there.
“Ha?”
A hollow laugh escaped Varkio's lips. A man with striking white hair and amber eyes. A person who possessed an exceptionally handsome face, but whose magic was more pathetic than anyone else's.
“Vikamon?”
Vikamon Niflheim. The pathetic dropout who had been expelled from Jerion Academy was standing right there. Vikamon was the most untalented person in magic among everyone Varkio remembered. It was to the point where Vikamon had been mocked the most during magic classes. And now, that very person had appeared before him. Varkio's eyes turned cold and sinister.
“I see. So that's how it is.”
Varkio let out a scoff of disbelief. “You're the one who spearheaded this. Just to get revenge on me.”
To avenge the mockery he had suffered, Vikamon had exposed the truth under the banner of the boycott. How he had managed to uncover his corruption remained a mystery. However, Varkio had no intention of forgiving Vikamon for daring to touch him so fearlessly.
“You fearless bastard, do you have any idea who I am to pull a stunt like this? I'll teach you a lesson you'll never forget.”
Varkio drew his staff from his waist. Seeing this, Vikamon frowned slightly and spoke.
“What kind of bullshit are you spouting?”
“Trying to play dumb, are we? I understand your anger. But if you want to resent someone, resent your own pathetic magic skills!”
With those words, Varkio activated his specialty, lightning magic. The explosive torrent of mana pouring out of him clearly demonstrated why he was a third-year magic professor.
Rumble!
Black currents of electricity instantly circled the room. Facing the oncoming surge of electricity, Vikamon just stood there blankly, doing absolutely nothing. At the very moment Varkio became certain of his death—
Crackle!
The pouring lightning magic was sucked entirely into the palm of his hand. There was a ring on his finger. Varkio did not know. He did not know that Vikamon was his worst possible matchup.
Vikamon's Lightning Caller. It possessed the power to absorb all forms of lightning, save for the divine lightning sent by the God of Thunder. In other words, Varkio's specialty, lightning magic, was completely useless against him.
Boom!
Before Varkio could even register his shock, Vikamon was already right in front of his nose. He had propelled himself forward with an explosion detonated from the soles of his feet.
Magic Engraving: Explosion. The moment Vikamon, who had detonated it beneath his feet, reached Varkio's face, Varkio reacted as if to prove his past reputation was no lie. Channeling his mana, a wall of flames erupted from the tip of his staff.
No fool would charge through a wall of high heat with their bare body. Vikamon would surely retreat.
“It seems you prepared a few tricks to counter me, but!”
Unfortunately, a magic professor of Jerion Academy was not someone who could be defeated with a single counter to lightning magic. He was absolutely certain Vikamon would back away.
Whoosh!
Yet, here was a fool who charged straight through the wall of intense heat with his bare body.
“What?!”
Varkio's head rang with a second wave of sheer bewilderment. And Vikamon, intending to make his head ring for real, swung his fist downward.
Crash!
Struck by Vikamon's fist, Varkio rolled across the floor, smashing into the office furniture. Though panicked, he had managed to wrap a defensive spell around his face at the last second.
“Ugh, you crazy bastard.”
Who in their right mind would leap through a wall of fire with their bare body? He had been so flustered that he couldn't even cast his magic properly. But the boy had crossed the wall of fire with his own body. He must have suffered severe burns and shouldn't even be able to move.
“Hehe, foolish brat.”
Just as he thought that and tried to push himself up—
Thud!
Varkio was suddenly pinned down by an overwhelming force from above, halting his attempt to rise. He hurriedly looked up. Standing over him, illuminated by the moonlight spilling through the window, was Vikamon.
His clothes were scorched and singed in various places. Yet, there was not a single burn mark on his flesh. Varkio stared in utter disbelief. To charge through his wall of fire and emerge without a single burn—it was impossible.
“It's reasonably warm.”
Vikamon's Steel Body. Within it resided the Fire's Flame. Already naturally resistant to fire, his body had attained an even higher level of resistance than before. Furthermore, he had been detonating explosions on his own body daily with his magic engravings. By now, his physical form had reached a state where ordinary fire could do nothing to him.
Through the moonlight, Vikamon's amber eyes gleamed coldly.
Thump.
Varkio's heart sank. Twice now, his proudest spells had been neutralized without inflicting a single scratch. Any student would have been electrocuted and charred black by his first strike. Yet, Vikamon stood perfectly fine, completely unscathed. Faced with a reality that defied all common sense, Varkio unconsciously began to feel fear.
“Y-You bastard, where do you think you're stepping?!”
He swung his staff in a final, desperate struggle. His lightning had been blocked, and his wall of fire had failed. That left only one option.
“Fine! Let's see if you can still stand after freezing to death!”
A storm of frost instantly swept through the office. True to his specialty in high-speed casting, the spell he unleashed was incredibly difficult even for Vikamon to react to.
Crack, crack!
The office was completely transformed into a frozen hell. The same went for Vikamon, who had taken the spell head-on. He stood stiffly over Varkio, entirely encased in ice.
Shivering from the cold himself, Varkio let out a malicious laugh. “Heh, hehe... Yes, no matter how much a brat like you runs wild, you're still nothing.”
To shatter the frozen Vikamon, he began to manifest a high-output sphere of light.
“Die!”
Just as he was about to fire the completed projectile—
Shatter!
Vikamon's frozen leg suddenly kicked outward.
Crunch!
“Aaargh!”
Vikamon's foot stomped down, crushing the hand holding the staff. Overwhelmed by the agonizing pain, Varkio failed to release his magic and dropped his staff.
Crack, crack!
At the same time, the ice encasing Vikamon's body shattered as he moved. A brilliant yellow light flashed in his right eye. Within it was an eye reminiscent of a reptile.
A shiver ran down Varkio's spine.
Those eyes carried a warning, burning with rage as if asking: Who do you think you are, casting such a trivial frost spell on me?
Looking into them, an instinctual terror engraved into all living things surged within Varkio.
The innate ability of the awakened Dragon's Vestige: Fear.
The absolute terror inherent to living creatures swallowed him whole. Varkio's face turned deathly pale, and cold sweat poured down his forehead.
“H-Hic...!”
Ancient dragon magic was the worst possible matchup for a mage. Unless one was Sharin, who possessed the Mirinae, an ordinary mage like Varkio had absolutely no way to resist Fear.
Furthermore, Varkio had neglected his magical research, drunk on his past glory. He had lived solely for his greedy desire to establish a magic tower. All his life, he believed he was only a hair's breadth behind the Blue Magic Tower Master. But now, there were countless brilliant mages standing before him, not just the Blue Magic Tower Master. Varkio had ignored this reality, forever coddling himself with the thought that he was merely a perpetual second-place. Those drunk on authority and power ultimately become dropouts of their own making.
Vikamon raised his clenched fist. In truth, the foreign kingdom had only been using him anyway. They never had any intention of building him a magic tower.
“Why does a bastard who preys on kids have such big dreams?”
Vikamon decided to put an end to his dream.
“Wake up.”
Vikamon swung his fist straight down.